Uttarakhand governor assents stricter anti-conversion law

Dehradun: Making illegal conversions a cognizable and non-bailable offence, the Uttarakhand Governor Lt Gen (Retd) Gurmit Singh gave his approval to the Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill, 2022, on Saturday.

If found guilty, a person could end up in prison for up to years under the Act in the state, PTI reported.

Official sources informed that the state assembly passed the Bill on November 30, 2022, and it was sent to the governor's assent earlier this week.

They said that the governor's sanction of the bill had become an act paving the way for stricter punishment of offenders in such cases. Apart from a maximum imprisonment of up to ten years, persons indulging in forceful and unlawful conversion in Uttarakhand will now be slapped with a fine of at least Rs 50,000.

The Act says, "No person shall convert, either directly or otherwise, any other person from one religion to another by use or practice of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means. No person shall abet, convince or conspire such conversion."

In November, the Madhya Pradesh administration decided to move the Supreme Court challenging the High Court's interim order that forbids the state from prosecuting interfaith couples who married without informing a district magistrate.

Jharkhand (2017), Uttarakhand (2018), Himachal Pradesh (2019), Uttar Pradesh (2021) and Madhya Pradesh (2022) have passed laws to regulate religious conversions. Karnataka assembly also passed an anticonversion bill in September.